Brantford Hunters in Sinclair
As the story goes, two hunters from Brantford met at the Hart farm on Rebecca Lake one fall in the 1890s, Oscar Bixel of Bixel Brewery and C. H. Watrous of the Watrous Engine Works. At the time they went separate ways – one to the East River and the other elsewhere in the Bella-Rebecca area – but they were forerunners of a hunt club that began in 1896 and is still in existence today.
It is a reasonable guess that Bixel was the one who stayed, and also that Elizabeth Hart may have directed him to the Hart property on Bella Lake, recently vacated by postmaster Edgar Joseph Brooks. In 1896, Bixel and two other Brantford men, Fred Frank and Johnny Johnson (brother of the poet Pauline Johnson), were hunting out of the Bella Lake farm.
Elizabeth Hart, widow of Andrew who had died in 1895, sold her Bella Lake lots in about 1901 to a New York family who set up their private “Camp Billie Bear.” The next year, Frank, Bixel, Henry Harper (Methodist minister in Huntsville), and Thomas Watkins of Hamilton bought two McBrien family lots – Lot 1, Concession 13 and Lot 32, Concession B – north of the Big East River.
From the East River to Loon Lake
The Big East, however, was home to a number of hunt camps, and by 1905 the group had established their camp on Loon Lake on Lots 11 and 12, Concession B, owned by Samuel Bloss (who had bought them in 1902 from William Bravender’s widow Mary Jane and son James). Bloss continued to use the land until 1909, when he sold the lots to Henry Harper (by then living in Orangeville). Harper transferred them to the Loon Lake Hunt Club, sometimes called the Brantford Hunt Club, the year after it was incorporated in 1920.
Samuel Bloss had also leased lots from Henry Hammell, who had acted as a guide for the group prior to 1904, when his wife Bertha (Elizabeth Hart’s older daughter) died, leaving him with four small sons. Henry moved to Saskatchewan, where by this time he had family connections, and his log homestead became part of the Loon Lake clubhouse. The Bravender frame house was moved to an adjoining spot.
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The much-renovated Loon Lake club house in 2006 (Township of Lake of Bays, Barbara Paterson Papers Box 4, Selkirk binder photo album) |
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Loon Lake Hunt Club bought Lot 10, Concession A, encompassing the southern part of Loon Lake, from the Hutcheson family in 1965, as well as part of Lot 13, Concession B (the area of the Club’s entrance laneway), also from the Hutcheson family, in 2012.
From Early Days…
A remembrance from early days from “D. M. Waterous” (who, the record states, hunted with the camp from 1913 to 1915) is recorded in the Loon Lake Hunt Club archive: “Dick Nolan who had a farm at what is now OxBow Lodge brought his team and wagon to the landing (Brooks’ farm, now Tally-Ho). The hunters loaded their gear on the wagon and walked into camp ahead of the wagon – shooting partridge as they went along – stopping on the way at the well and various other choice spots to ‘drink in’ the fresh Muskoka air.”
Sources:
Hutcheson, Bob, personal communication, November 13, 2018.
Mansell, W. Dan, Sunset Farm (Peterborough: asiOtus Natural Heritage Consultants, Barbara Paterson Papers, 2012).
Mansell, W. Dan, and Carolyn Paterson, eds., Pioneer Glimpses from Sinclair Township, Muskoka (Peterborough: asiOtus Natural Heritage Consultants, Barbara Paterson Papers, 2015).
MuskokaRegion.com, “Stories of the Past Sidebar: Loon Lake Hunting Camp (1919),” (Huntsville Forester, October 17, 2007), https://www.muskokaregion.com/opinion-story/3593281-stories-of-the-past-sidebar/
Township of Lake of Bays, Barbara Paterson Papers Box 1, binder “Hunt Camps,” notes from interview with Rev. Hitchon, August 1983.
Township of Lake of Bays, Barbara Paterson Papers Box “5,” binder “Bravender, Bloss, McMaster, McBrien Families”; Loon Lake Hunt Club Archive, “A Hunter’s Log: The Politics of the Yearly Hunt” and “Watson, Hunter, Irons Party,” Vista (Forester Press), August 4, 1989, pp. 7-8; notes of interview with “D. M. Waterous” (hunted at Loon Lake 1913-1915), December 4, 1970.